John Schlesinger · 1969 · road

John Schlesinger's 1969 film. A Texas dishwasher buys a cowboy outfit and takes the bus to New York, certain the city's rich women will pay for his company. What he finds instead is a condemned building, a consumptive small-time hustler named Ratso Rizzo, and a friendship that lasts exactly as long as it takes to get the two of them onto a bus heading south.

1. 1
   Big Spring

   Joe Buck quits the dishwashing job in a west Texas town, packs a transistor radio and a new pair of tooled boots, and boards the eastbound bus in a fringed jacket, convinced that New York is full of lonely women who will pay.

2. 2
   New York

   Times Square eats him alive. Broke, evicted and thoroughly out of his depth, Joe falls in with Ratso Rizzo, a limping consumptive con man who takes him home to a condemned building with no heat and a plan to manage his career.

3. 3
   Miami

   With Ratso failing badly through a New York winter, Joe sells what he has left for two bus tickets to Florida - and somewhere on the long road south, as the palms finally appear outside the window, the trip stops being a rescue.